The GHC Builder

The GHC builder is a client/server system that allows us to build and test GHC on lots of different computers scattered around the world (the clients, or build slaves), and aggregate the test results centrally (the server).

Each night we build GHC on each slave, in various different ways, run the test suite and performance benchmarks, and mail the results to the [email protected] mailing list.

Seeing build results

Can you offer a build slave?

We're always keen to add more build slaves to the setup. If a platform is represented in the nightly builds, it's we can identify and fix problems specific to that platform much more quickly. If you'd like to join the fun, please let us know at cvs-ghc@….

How to set up a build slave

The GHC Builder is written in Haskell as a pair of Cabal packages (one for the clients/slaves, and one for the server).

Once you have built it, pick a username (something fairly unique to you) and password, and send them to igloo@… along with the time (and timezone) you want builds to happen and any extra information (e.g. "GNU make is gmake", or "builds need these lines added to mk/build.mk"). The username is used so we know which machine the build log came from, and the password is used to verify that the client is who it claims it is.

Then initialise the client by creating a new directory, and running:

builder-client init username password darcs.haskell.org

in it, where username and password are your username and password. This will create various files and subdirectories that the client will use. Then put a copy of ​http://darcs.haskell.org/ghcBuilder/cert/root.pem in certs/ so that the client can verify that it is connecting to the right server.

You can now run the client with:

builder-client

or

builder-client -v

We recommend running in screen for now, as the client doesn't daemonise itself yet. The client will connect to the server, and the server will tell the client how and when to do builds. The client therefore needs to be left running unless you want to stop builds from happening.